


a promise unbroken, for the love of the mother, of the father is strong

by HarricIsLife



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Afterlife, Canon Compliant, Canon Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Conversations Between The Dead, Conversations with the dead, F/M, Gen, POV Female Character, Unrequited Love, because y'know Cedric is dead at that point so :/
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-29
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2019-01-22 11:56:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12481012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarricIsLife/pseuds/HarricIsLife
Summary: Lily and James loving Harry until the end, and after.





	a promise unbroken, for the love of the mother, of the father is strong

**Author's Note:**

> Posting this on a mobile, will polish and properly tag and title it later. (At the rate this is going, I'm not gonna meet my own set deadline for this fic, and thus I'm posting all that I've written, and hopefully will update this before 31st October, otherwise when I will get time after.)
> 
> Since the 36th Death Day party of Lily and James is fast approaching, I taught I would celebrate a little early. :)
> 
> I wanted to write both Lily and James equally, but I love Lily more than I do James, and this is the way the story was going, so this is what happened.
> 
> Cedric wasn't supposed to be a big part of this, but he is gonna be, because I love him, OKAY!

Looking into his tiny face, she had never felt more love than she did right then.

Looking into those green eyes, so like her own, Lily reinforced the promise she had made to herself that she would do everything in her power to protect him, and looking over at James she saw the same resolve in his eyes as well and she smiled.

Their baby would be safe, they would make sure of it.

*

It was a feeling, so like the ones she had experienced before in this place, but far stronger than those other times, that her baby, her Harry needed her. A magic was calling, and she followed.

It was desire, a desire through a mirror, a powerful mirror, a mirror that showed someone what they desired, and her son desired her, needed her, and glancing around she felt her heart shatter, it would have she was sure, if she was alive, because her son desired not only her but his father as well, the entirety of his family in fact.

Looking at him Lily felt her heart grow fond, as if it was still beating, and it longed so much she found it unbearable, because her baby boy had grown up, he looked tiny for the age she guessed he was but he had grown up, and she had missed it all.

She couldn't do anything but smile, and she did that with all her heart, as he sat in the empty classroom of Hogwarts where the mirror was, and looked. Looked at her, and at James, and at his whole family, with so much longing, so much desire in his eyes that her unpresent, unbeating heart shattered some more.

For a few nights after, he returned on the regular, once with a friend who vanished a second later, looking at himself with her and the rest of his family, and she in turn looked back, and just through a mirror through her eyes and smile showed him how much she loved him. And Lily looked at him, really looked at him, because she knew he would have to get back to his life eventually, so she looked back and marveled at the fact how like his father he looked and tried to memorise everything about him, the way he moved, the way he stood, the way he sat. He looked at them with longing, and they looked back with serenity displayed on their faces, but she knew everyone longed to be with him as well.

Far too soon that eventuality arrived, and he was gone, but her love for him had just grown and she was grateful for this, grateful for the time spent with him, however short it was.

*

Harry was a happy kid, and lively. He could be quiet when he wanted to be, and so curious she got scared sometimes. He was the best of James and her, and she wasn't sure if that was that great of a result or not, but then again she might be hoping too much.

Zooming around on the toy broomstick that Sirius had given him for his first birthday, Harry's delight was obvious and Lily's heart was fond, because it looked like that the Potter family had just gotten themselves another Quidditch player.

Under Fidilius, in their home, she still loved, and her promise still stood, her son will be protected by magic, and if it failed, his parents, because they loved him so much, and much more than they loved each other, and they loved each other a whole lot.

*

The first she felt it, she was aware that over a year had passed, unlike before when she couldn't tell about the passage of time.

It wasn't like before though, she couldn't see Harry, she couldn't look at him, he wasn't there, but a feeling was. 

A feeling of encroaching darkness, and her dying moments played over and over, and she knew her son was suffering and she wasn't there to help.

The feeling returned nearly a month later, and soon after, again and again, and everytime it was terrible, and there was this horrible realisation she felt with the feeling, that Harry welcomed the darkness because he could hear his mother for the first time because of it. And she knew it was the Dementors, and she feared for her son, because despite keeping her promise to protect him with all the power she has, she can't protect him now, because she wasn't there, and that hurt.

And she feared, and she hoped, and loved still, because that's all she could do now.

Soon though she felt happiness taking away the darkness, the feeling of that light was too bright, and she knew her son could cast a Patronus now, and she felt proud because he was young to do it, but he had, and she loved.

*

There was a prophecy about her son, Lily couldn't believe it. She believed Dumbledore, sure, that it existed, but the fact that her son would vanquish Voldemort was just unbelievable and she feared, so much, because no, this couldn't be happening, her son was a direct target on his path, and no he won't get him, because the promise she had made to herself and knew that James had made to himself too, she will verbalise it, because she loved Harry and she would protect him with her dying breath if needs be. 

*

Things change for her, for them, with the phoenix song, or maybe it's the appearance of the boy, she isn't sure about it for a long time, but things change in the place everyone exists after death, maybe for the better, or maybe not, she isn't sure about that for a long time either.

It starts with the soft trilling of the phoenix's melodious voice, and despite never having heard it before, somehow she is sure it's the phoenix that sings, and it calls.

She sees the boy then, he looks shocked, and so very young, and suddenly she is very afraid. A year has passed since she last felt a connection to Harry, and this scarily feels like a connection to him.

She sees Bertha Jorkins next, she might have grown older than Lily remembered, but it is her, and an old man is there too, possibly muggle. 

And then they see her, all of them, and all of a sudden she knows what's happening.

And then she sees James for the first time since they looked at Harry through a mirror nearly three years ago, and there couldn't be any drastically different or worse way to meet him again, she thinks.

"Lily," James says, and it's so weird hearing a human voice again, a dead human, but a human all the same.

"James," Lily says in return, and she doesn't know what to say next. He looks just as she remembered, nothing has changed about him, and how could it, she thinks, when he died before her, just a few minutes before, but before her, trying to keep the promise they made to themselves and to each other.

So she asks, "Remember our promise?" and the resolve she saw in his eyes all those years ago is there still, "it won't do to break it now."

With the nod of his head the intensity of the phoenix song increases, and then a green light appears, it looks different than when she saw it first, but maybe it's because she is seeing it from the other end.

Cedric goes through it, slowly, but he goes, and then the white of the place they're on is awashed with golden light, with red light speckled throughout, it looks beautiful.

But not as beautiful as the golden dome of light she finds herself in once she listens to the magic calling and passes through the light. 

Wands connected with red and green beams, the ethereal song of the phoenix in the air, she should have felt content, but all she feels is undying love, and fiery rage. The feelings are contradictory, but she she gives them to the two here that deserve it. 

In the graveyard, with Cedric's body in the background and with panicking Death Eaters surrounding the golden dome, she enjoys spewing hateful words in Voldemort's ears, and watching the fear displayed in his eyes, and whispering soothing words, encouraging, words of support, of reassurance, of love to her baby boy.

Harry looks haggard, and again she hates having missed him grow, but he looks so very strong, and that makes her so bloody proud.

She keeps her promise again, and prays it would be the last time her son would need her, would need them, to keep it.

~

After it's all over, they don't go back to the white of the world they had been in for long, nor are they still in the living world, and they're no longer the ghostly forms they were when the passed through the green light, things have changed for the dead, they were aware, and they could all see each other.

Bertha drifts off with the awestruck Frank to somewhere else, and they're not still in the graveyard or anywhere in the living world, but it still feels like they're still there.

"I'm Cedric," Cedric says then.

"We know," James says.

"How?"

"We just do," Lily says.

"You're Harry's parents," Cedric says then, and it's not a question.

"We are," Lily says.

"You're so young," Cedric looks shocked.

"You're younger," James says sadly.

Cedric doesn't look like he knows what to say to that, and so they stay quiet, and slowly together all three of them drift off away from the graveyard.

"I'm sorry," Cedric eventually says.

"We've been dead for a long time, Cedric, we've gotten over it," James replies, "but we're really sorry for you."

"That's not what I meant," Cedric says with a shake of his head, "I mean, I'm sorry that you're dead, and that I am, yeah, but I meant, I'm sorry that Harry had just suffered so much."

James looked surprised at the clarification, and Lily immediately decides that she likes Cedric very much. 

~*~


End file.
